I spent the four days of Easter cycling around the countryside of Sussex and Hampshire. By 'countryside' I mean intensively managed farmland, flailed hedgerows and the occasional golf course. There were nice bits, of course, but overall the environment was pretty hostile for your average wild creature.

I wondered how the local wildlife managed to survive in such conditions. Take hedgehogs, for example, which have declined by 25% in the last 10 years alone, due in part to the loss of rural habitat to intensively managed farmland. At various points of my journey it was clear to see: for miles around were enormous fields of oilseed rape bordered by scrawny hedges. Where would a hedgehog sleep among those? Where would it find food? Where would it rear its young? Nowhere.

In small pockets where wildflowers were allowed to flourish, there were lots of red-tailed, buff-tailed and common carder bumblebees. I saw my first speckled wood and orange tip butterflies of the year. Yet at other points of my journey the sight of a bee was a rarity and I didn't see any butterflies at all. But it was the different sounds of the countryside that really struck me; in more sensitively-managed areas the calls of skylarks and chiffchaffs were so loud; elsewhere birdsong was noticeably absent.

This was the first time I'd directly observed the intensive management of farmland and corresponding lack of wildlife. Previously, I'd only known the facts, which I've written about from my desk in London: since the second world war, we've lost 97% of our lowland meadows and, in some parts of the country, as much as 50% of our hedgerows. But here it was, in front of me, for miles around.

Meadows, woodland, hedgerows, even long stubby bits of grass, all represent habitats for some creature or other. Gardens can't make up for the loss of these landscapes, but they can provide habitats for some of our more adaptable wildlife.

It's already been proved that gardens are better for many bees than farmed land: neglected corners and holes under sheds provide the perfect nesting sites, while flowers offer nectar from February to November. We can meet the needs of hedgehogs with a pile of leaves, stack of logs or a compost heap (although a mixed, native hedge is five-star accommodation if you have the space for one), and a few choice caterpillar food plants would make our back yards better all-round habitats for butterflies and moths.

There are plenty of farmers, charities and organisations trying to save what precious few wild habitats we have left. The rest is up to us.

Kate Bradbury writes and commissions wildlife content for Gardeners' World Magazine and writes a weekly blog on gardenersworld.com. You can read her other posts for the Guardian gardening blog here.